Introduction

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops international Web standards: HTML, CSS, and many more. W3C’s Web standards are called W3C Recommendations.

All W3C standards are reviewed for accessibility support by the Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group.

The W3C standards and Working Group Notes introduced below are particularly relevant to accessibility.

Accessibility Guidelines

Essential Components of Web Accessibility shows how web accessibility depends on several components of web development and interaction working together, and how the WAI guidelines (WCAG, ATAG, UAAG) apply.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

Web “content” generally refers to the information in a web page or web application, including:

natural information such as text, images, and sounds

code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.

WCAG applies to dynamic content, multimedia, “mobile”, etc. WCAG can also be applied to non-web information and communications technologies (ICT), as described in WCAG2ICT.

Personalization

Personalization Overview — Personalization involves tailoring the user experience to meet the needs and preferences of the individual user. Content authors can use personalization standards to provide a default design and enable user personalization with minimal work.